Director of the MLI participated in the conference in London

23 September 2011

September 19-20, Director of the Media LawInstitute participated in the International Conference dedicated to media lawquestions and organized by the Media Law Resource Center (USA).

Conference attended more than 150 lawyers from the U.S. and the UK. The biggest attention of participants was paid to the theme of reforming the lawof defamation in the UK. Taras Shevchenko was a speaker during a session on thereform of British law on protection of honor and dignity. He raised thequestion of how effective are measures of cessation the defamatory tourism.

Defamatory tourism is a term for cases when foreigners lodge the lawsuits in Londonagainst the publications and journalists from other countries, using the weaknessesof British law. For Ukraine, this issue is relevant because the Ukrainianoligarchs are also suing the journalists in London. So Akhmetov successfully wona case against the “Observer” in 2008, and in 2011 Kyiv Post was ableto assert their rights in a London court on the suit filed by Firtash.